Restoration

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Restoration time and guarantee

The process of restoring an antique watch is essentially the same as a complete service, although it will, naturally, take more time, particularly if replacement parts have to be specially made. Any restoration involves a thorough study of the watch in question, historical research and specific courses of action that usually take several days or even weeks.

The length of time required for a restoration depends on the watch model and its condition, as well as the availability of spare parts, and can extend to several months. As stated in the IWC service guarantee, IWC Schaffhausen grants a 24-month warranty on all work carried out and parts replaced as part of the restoration.

Please note that the standards of accuracy and water-resistance expected of modern IWC watches cannot always be guaranteed in the case of old and antique models. Nevertheless, many historical watches from Schaffhausen can boast exemplary precision: a deviation of just a few seconds per day is anything but a rarity.

Service scope

The achievements of IWC Schaffhausen’s team of specialists during the restoration of old and antique watches are often little short of miraculous. In many cases they have instilled new life into historical watches that had initially appeared beyond repair. Our specialists always do their utmost to retain or restore the watch’s original properties wherever possible. To assist them, they are able to refer back to the data of all the watches ever produced, which are kept in the company’s record books.

In the spare parts store millions of components – some of them minuscule – are carefully organised and kept under optimal conditions. They cover all the current models and go back to the Jones calibres made in IWC’s earliest years. This means that the company is able to provide original spare parts for many, many years. As a rule, missing parts can be made as required.

Every restoration is completed with a strict check of the watch’s functions and performance in accordance with the original specifications. Depending on the model, the final stage is a quality control, which, among other things, tests the watch’s accuracy and power reserve over a period of several days.

The restoration of old and antique watches are often little short of miraculous